We are going to break RavenDB into several distinct editions, from the RavenDB Basic, suitable for small apps to RavenDB Standard which is the current version and all the way up to RavenDB enterprise, which is going to get some awesome features (windows clustering, index encryption, etc). We are also going to have plans for ISVs, which will allow them royalty free distribution of RavenDB for their customers.

We are going to update our pricing structure. You’ll hear more about this when we have finalized pricing.

Because I am well aware of the possible questions, I suggest reading the thread discussing both editions and pricing in the mailing list:

I will repeat again that we haven’t yet made final pricing decisions, so don’t take the numbers thrown around in those threads as gospel, but they are pretty close to what we will have.

This is the boring commercial stuff, but I am much more interested in talking about the new RavenDB roadmap. In fact, you can actually read all of our plans here. The major components for RavenDB 1.2 are:

Comments

I think your pricing strategy is fair enough for this great piece of technology. Free license for development is very clever choice. Also I think Basic license would be used by a huge amount of small companies that can't afford standard or enterprise license at the very beginning.

Looking over the threads, I think my situation would fall through the cracks -

I often create websites or small internal apps for companies that don't have an IT department. The average charge for these is around $500-600 (many are simple one-page apps or single-task automation). My effective margin is pretty slim on these, as it means an effective bill rate of ~$50 once installation time is taken into account.

This isn't my "day job". I do about 6-8 a year, but it's nice pocket money.

If I wanted to use RavenDB for these apps, what could I do? The "OEM License" of ~$1500/year means I halve my profit, so that's out. I can't pay per instance in any way.

In a perfect world, I'd rather be able to give you some money! I would love a tier that is "0 support incidents, embedded only, 1-2db limit, 2core limit, $70 per instance, no upgrades included".

If you can stick to "0 support, you download it and it's on your head", don't price yourself so high that I can't give you money, especially when I want to!

very curious about the new pricing and the replication enhancements. If it is not late: extension points or events on which to subscribe when there is an connection failure.
the reason is to create status alerts or warnings to administrators.